Langston Hood, Senior Sports Writer
It is with immense remorse and sadness that I press these keys in service of the noble Wooster Voice for the last time today. Covering sports for this newspaper has been one of my favorite parts of attending Wooster over the last four years. My love for sports has also left me remarkably empty-handed for this venture. I was not given a prompt, I was not given an event, a team nor a game to cover. So, I don’t really have a plan for this one, no emails to send, no quotes to copy and paste, just the contents of my mind and my mind alone.
I don’t have any privileged wisdom or secrets to share. I have long been plagued by indecisiveness and it seems that it is striking again at this very moment. It has also long been a struggle of mine to discern between what is worth sharing with the world and what is not. I’m well aware that the target audience of this newspaper is not the whole world and if you’re still reading at this point you must have a vested interest in what I have to say. And if that is the case I’ll just share some general thoughts and you can do with that what you will.
First and foremost, talk to strangers. Wooster is supposed to be unique, because of the small student body and the interconnectedness that is supposed to follow. And this seems to have taken a steep downturn post-COVID and the new age of remote classes. But, I think it is something that we ought to try and fix. Everyone around you has something worth sharing and I firmly believe that any given person is a singular good conversation from becoming friends with anyone else. So, talk to the people next to you in class. Be present and grow in the uncomfortability of breaking the silence that falls over every classroom in the minutes before instruction begins.
Next, and arguably more importantly, please treat the people that make this school function with some semblance of respect. We’ve all stormed into Lowry famished, starved and exhausted, but this should not manifest itself in blatant disrespect to our service staff. Dealing with 18-22 year-old college students all day is undoubtedly frustrating and it is only made worse when exchanges are voids of pleases and thank yous. The people behind the counters and behind the glass displays deserve to be treated kindly.
Thirdly (I’ve always liked that word), talk to your professors. It’s hard sometimes, but they want the best for you and their being in education attests to that. They might not make it known, but I would venture to say the vast majority of professors would love for you to make a concerted effort to know them outside the classroom and beyond their lessons. Also, they have been through most of the trials and tribulations that you have and they have an abundance of experience that they would likely share with you.
And lastly, enjoy your time here. It goes fast, and I cannot stress this enough, it goes so, so unbelievably fast. It seems like just yesterday I landed at Hopkins Airport and made my way to Wooster. Those endless summer nights jammed in a triple on the third floor of Douglass quickly melted into my new reality, staring down the barrel of the real world. So, enjoy it while you can, say yes to things, take risks, sit in Lowry for hours on end and savor every last moment of it. Before long, Wooster will be a far cry away and so will everything that made you fall in love with it. Thanks for everything, it’s been a pleasure.
The Wooster Voice 